| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 會計學系 === 86 === Corporate fraud is a significant problem for business and the CPA
profession. The responsibilities of auditors and management to detect and
report fraud have long been controversial. The public believes that
auditors can find out all fraud, and that a "clean" report implies that
fraud was absent. The "expectation gap" between what the public believes
auditors should do and how auditors have defined their role has led to
the current legal environment. There are more and more litigation to
aueitors resulting from the occurrence of business fraud. And increased
litigation has already had a dramatic effect on the profession.
Because of the fraud risk imposed on auditors, auditors have to work
with more carefulness. In order to help auditors reduce risk, there has
been a growing interest in the use of red flags as potential indicators
of fraud. What are fraud risk factors? How do auditors perceive them? What
implication are in their perception? And what characteristics of auditors''
will affect their evaluation? This study want to understand these
questions. Briefly speaking, the objectives of this study include (1)
understanding the way auditors perceive fraud risk factors, (2)
classifying these factors in a appropriate way and understanding their
contents and implications, (3) understanding those characteristics of
auditors'' which will affect their perceptions.
A survey containing forty fraud risk factors was mailed to a sample
of 500 auditors in Taiwanese CPA firms to obtain the necessary data for
statistical analysis in this study. 121 questionnaires were completed and
returned, resulting in a response rate of 24.54%. The forty factors were
selected from SAS No.53 and SAS No.82, with appropriate classifications
and considerations.
In summary, the findings are as follows:
1. Perceptions of most fraud risk factors among auditors are quite
diverse, but their perceptions to the factor "complicated related
party transactions" are consistent. It is probably because Taiwanese
business commonly have complicated related parties, and it isn''t easy
to audit these transactions. Therefore, auditors'' suspensions to this
factor are consistently high.
2. After appropriate classifying, auditors generally perceived
"attribute" factors to be more significantly important warning signs.
That is, auditors considered factors directly related to management
intention or behaviors important red flags.
3. The level of subjects'' education and size of CPA firms they work for
are found to be positively related to the level of fraud risk perception.
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